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One million Singaporean cybercrime victims in the past twelve months

We are still very trusting when it comes to matters financial but if the recent report from Norton is to be believed, perhaps we shouldn’t be so blasé. They surveyed more than 13,000 online adults aged between 18 and 64, from 24 countries.

The results showed that Baby Boomers were less susceptible to cyber-crime than the later Millennialsand the highest number of cyber-crime victims were to be found in Russia (85%), China (77%) and South Africa (73%).

Cyber crime victims were more likely to be male (64%) than female(58%) which is probably a reflection of testosterone-fuelled impulses!

Singapore fares poorly with the annual cost of cyber crime estimated at US$1 billion and 61% admitting that they had experienced some form of cyber crime in their lifetime.

One million Singaporeans have been victims of such activity in the past twelve months.

With an estimated $US113 billion of cyber crime taking place over a year, the situation is likely to get worse with the increasing move away from desktops to mobile devices. The survey revealed that almost half of respondents leave security concerns behind when they hit the street. They don’t use basic precautions such as password protection, security software of any kind or backup their important files.

Here’s another sobering revelation; 57% aren’t even aware that security solutions for mobile devices even exist

No wonder then that there are more than one million victims of cyber crime daily. With the lines blurring between home personal life and work their are increased security concerns for business as well with these trends. One in five respondents admitted sharing work information with friends and family.

36% reported that their company had no policy in place when it came to the use of mobile device for work and 27% of all adults admitted they had lost their mobile phones or had them stolen. So considering these results, how secure is your business data?

Other points of interest to those concerned with online security include:

41% of online adults surveyed have been victims of hacking, malware, scams, viruses, fraud and theft in the past year

Half (50%) have been victims of either cyber crime and/or ‘negative situations’ over the same period. This includes being bullied or stalked online, or receiving nude images from perfect strangers.

When it comes to social media people appear to be just as lax if not more so. For example 38% of Singaporeans didn’t bother to log out after a social media session, and 25% of them actually share their social media log-in details and passwords with others.

Somewhat surprisingly then considering the slack attitude portrayed only 12% of the global sample admitted that someone else had hacked into their social media account and pretended to be them.

We’ve grown very attached to our mobile devices but have largely forgotten the Internet security risks and the security protocols that we rigorously applied to our desk top systems.

Given all of the above, perhaps it is now time to think far more seriously about how we can personally fight cyber crime by being more diligent; especially if we are wedded to our smartphone or tablet.

If you are a business concerned with security of your data and want to know what options are available to you, why not take advantage of Web Synergies consulting services.